There are a couple billboards along Highway 37, the closer you get to town, which tell those passing by to visit Rockport or Port Aransas. They are colorful and depict the cities as sunny, small beach towns that you won’t want to miss. Driving past these billboards on the way back to Corpus Christi after Hurricane Harvey, a category four hurricane whose eye hit our beloved community, was a sight to see. Looking at them brought a multiplex of feelings to the surface. Sadness, fear, and despair are the words that come to mind. The feeling of sadness came because a community that we hold so close to our hearts got hit the hardest. Fear arises due to the unknown—the unknown of driving through our cities that might look unrecognizable. From fear comes despair. Seeing our broken buildings and devastated homes brings despair to the forefront of our emotions. However, through all of that, somewhere along the way, the feeling of hope surfaces and now is all that remains.

For some reason, it seems as though the worst of Mother Nature brings out the very best in humankind. If you drove around Rockport, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass, or any of the other surrounding areas a couple days after Harvey did its damage, you would see two different things: the wreckage, of course, that it left behind, and also an overwhelming effort to help. On every street, at every corner, there were people. Whether they were passing out hot meals, cutting down broken oak trees in order to create a path for residents to get to their front door, or sorting through massive piles of donations, they were there. Some were from neighboring cities, some were from other regions of Texas, and some were from places much further away.

ROCKPORT

“It is just what we do here in Texas,” Matt Metzger, who works for the headquarters of H-E-B in San Antonio, said. “I mean, when you see the reactions of the people here, it is so far beyond worth it. No one is worried about politics or the color of your skin right now. Everyone is just worried about helping out.”

That same response seemed to be common throughout when asking others how it felt to see so many people come together in order to help in the relief efforts. The majority of people, whether they were residents or volunteers, said the most hopeful thing they saw in all of this was people loving other people; it didn’t matter who you were or what your background was. People dropped what they were doing in order to lend their time, money, and hands to help this community.

“At a time where it seems like people are so divided, when something like this happens, you get to see all kinds of people come together, and that isn’t a usual sight to see,” Clay Bridges, Disaster Response Unit Commander of H-E-B, said. Opinions don’t matter in the face of disaster. The only thing that matters is helping our community get back up on its feet.

There are tons of amazing stories that arose from the relief efforts. Larry Williams, owner of a food truck in Austin named Crazy Mary’s, has a home in Rockport that he came down to check on. He brought his food truck with 1,200 meals prepared and made it a mission to help those who needed it most. “I’ve been coming here for five years now,” Larry said, “and this community has always been so kind to me. It was my turn to return the favor.”

Larry and his team set up in a parking lot in Rockport and began distributing meals. Soon, strangers began dropping off donations such as water, dog and cat food, and hygiene items. In no time there was a pile of items that were available for anyone who needed them. Larry quickly ran out of the 1,200 meals he brought with him; but he wasn’t done feeding people. “The food I am working off of now is purely donation based and somehow I still have food to cook for others,” he said.

PORT ARANSAS

Larry Williams’ act of selfless kindness does not stand alone. People, near and far, flocked to the Coastal Bend once they saw the images of what Harvey’s wrath left behind. “Churches from places like Michigan and Oklahoma are coming down here to help us,” Savanah Stirling, a volunteer for The City of Port Aransas Parks and Rec, said. “I mean, here in Port A, we kind of all know each other, and seeing so many different kinds of people working together to help us, from all over the place, that is a really special thing—that is what brings hope to my heart.”

When sitting down with Savanah, she took a moment to express just how important this community is. With about a foot and a half of water inside and a hole in the roof, a lot of the Port Aransas Community Theatre’s equipment got destroyed. “I cried the second I pulled up”, Savanah said in regards to the moment she saw the theatre for the first time after Harvey. “I have been doing shows here for ten years, and just last week I was on that stage performing Lion King, and now all that stuff is gone or ruined.”

After describing what it felt like to drive around her dear Port A and see the homes and businesses of friends and family now completely gone, there was one things she said that stood out. “It might not look like it right now, but it still feels like home. This is our home and we aren’t going to pack up and leave. It is going to take a while, but we will rebuild and it will be the same little island town it was before—only better.”

Take Coffee Waves for example—their Port Aransas location faced severe damages. “The shop was kind of completely destroyed,” Taylor Leys, the Marketing Director of the Port Aransas and Flour Bluff locations, said. The shop’s front doors let in almost three feet of water and two feet of grass, seaweed, and junk. Tearing the place down was the first thought on everyone’s mind once they saw what their home-away-from-home looked like after Harvey.

However, they decided not all hope was lost. After clearing the place out a bit, the Coffee Waves team decided they had a bigger purpose in all of this. Instead of continuing in their clean up and rebuilding process, they decided to show up every morning at 8 AM, and serve free coffee to any and everyone who needed it. It didn’t matter whether you lived in the area or if you came to help, Coffee Waves was there. It’s almost profound to see something as small as a cup of coffee lift someone’s spirits so high. “To see that first person walk up to us on that first day and cry because we were offering them coffee, that was big,” Taylor said.

ARANSAS PASS

When an entire community faces an event of such destruction, you would think people’s first reaction would be to throw in the towel. Yet, there isn’t a single person in any of these towns who felt that way. The option to forget about this place and start over somewhere new wasn’t on the table. This was their home—is their home. That sentiment of hope was seen in every direction. You could see it in the form of people clearing debris off the streets; in the form of a glimmer in the eye of local farmers who, even though they lost everything, decided to rebuild and remain here. That’s the thing about the Coastal Bend you see. It is a family and when one of us is down, we all rise up together, stronger than ever.

In Aransas Pass the scene could be described similarly. While, yes, there were telephone poles bent over at 30 degree angles and trees inside people’s dining rooms, there were also smiles and optimistic mindsets. Mitch Breon brought his food truck, Rock on Wheels, from San Antonio down. He set up a GoFundMe and immediately his followers began donating money to help the food truck obtain enough supplies to head down south and help. He parked in the first parking lot he found and began passing out meals. The response he and his team received was overwhelming. “These people have been through hell, and yet I have never seen so many smiles in my life. It is a beautiful thing to see,” Mitch said.

BAYSIDE

In the midst of all the chaos Harvey brought with him, smaller communities, such as Bayside, got swept under the rug for a couple of days. “We didn’t have a single donation item here and that was already three days after the hurricane,” Karen Lark, the Bayside City Secretary and Municipal Court Clerk, said. “This lady started talking about us on the radio, and then, all of a sudden, the donations began pouring in.”

A truck from the Portland PD pulled up to the Bayside City Hall and Community Center filled with cases of water and tears began to flow from Karen’s eyes. “The outpour of help and love, it has just been so overwhelming,” Karen said. Bayside, like the rest of the Coastal Bend, got hit hard. Almost every single structure in their little town experienced some type of damage. Numerous families were still living in their homes days after the storm. They had no electricity, sewage, or water, but they also had nowhere else to go. Showers, restrooms, medical assistance, and tents with air condition and cots were set up at City Hall for any resident to use. It will be a while until the state of the city of Bayside returns to its former glory, however its residents know Bayside will always be their home.

These communities will need these same kinds of helping hands for months, if not years, to come. Yet, there is no doubt help will be here, ready and waiting. It seemed as though no matter the circumstance any of the Coastal Bend residents found themselves coming home to, the reaction was the same. There was the initial feelings of shock and grief, of course. However, if there is one feeling still in the air a month after Harvey tore through the Coastal Bend, it is hope. Hope for what the place we call home will look like in the months to come. Hope for humanity and the thought that not all humility and kindness is lost. Most of all, hope for a community of people, who will rise above the devastation, against all odds, and be stronger than ever.